Adele holds for a second week at #1 with “Hello,” with Carly Rae Jepsen and Sara Bareilles steady in the top three. Bareilles is also the week’s biggest mover, as “Door Number Three” jumps from its #59 debut last week into the top twenty. (Speaking of the top twenty, a notable fact: Walk The Moon’s “Shut Up And Dance” exits the top twenty this week for the first time in its 61st week on the chart). Coldplay scores the highest debut of the week with A Head Full Of Dreams lead single “Adventure Of A Lifetime,” in at #55 ahead of Lissie’s “Hero” at #62. Additional debuts include new entries from xoV, Tori Kelly, and Alessia Cara.
xoV
The top ten rests fairly unchanged for another week, with Hunter Hunted and Robin Thicke featuring Nicki Minaj slipping into its lower reaches. Troye Sivan’s “Wild” is the week’s biggest mover, up 27 from last week’s #82 debut to #55. More notable are the debuts, led by Ellie Goulding’s Delirium lead single “On My Mind,” in at #24. Sara Bareilles isn’t far behind, launching “She Used To Be Mine” from the album What’s Inside: Songs From Waitress at #31. Joe Jonas-fronted band DNCE’s debut “Cake By The Ocean” and new Naughty Boy single “Runnin’ (Lose It All),” featuring Beyoncé and Arrow Benjamin, both enter within the top sixty. Below, additional debuts include new entries from Finish Ticket, BØRNS, Troye Sivan featuring Broods, XOV, CHVRCHES, and Great Good Fine OK.
After a fourteen-week run at the top, Martin Luke Brown slips out of the pole position as Walk The Moon’s “Shut Up And Dance” ascends to #1 in its 21st week on the chart. The rest of the top ten gets a slight shake-up as well, with Walk The Moon’s “Aquaman” also moving into the top three, Ellie Goulding continuing her upward momentum as “Love Me Like You Do” goes from #6 to #4, and Carrie Underwood’s newly-announced single “Little Toy Guns” moving 12-10. Tori Kelly scores the week’s highest debut, with new single “Nobody Love” entering at a lofty #25. Toward the bottom of the chart, XOV, Max Frost, and Sam Smith re-enter the chart, while new songs come in from Train, Coasts, Justin Mauriello, and Lee Ann Womack.
The top ten gets a pair of new entries: Ellie Goulding’s “Love Me Like You Do” vaults from #36 to #8 in its second week, while just below at #9, Kelly Clarkson scores the week’s highest debut with “Heartbeat Song.” Three more of last week’s debuts are the week’s biggest movers — Echosmith’s “Bright” ties Goulding with a 28-position jump for “Bright” (up 82-54), Bea Miller’s “Fire N Gold” jumps from #50 to #26, and Taylor Swift scores her highest-charting 1989 single yet with “Style” (up 42-23). XOV, who just missed the top 100 last fall with Hunger Games track “Animal,” scores three debuts this week from his Lucifer EP: the title track at #41, “Chaos” at #88, and “Blood Honey” at #100. Mickey Guyton’s “Better Than You Left Me” re-enters the chart, while Charli XCX featuring Rita Ora, HISTORY, and Zac Brown Band all make their way onto the chart.
As the music industry wakes up from its holiday slumber and begins the new year, attention shifts to developing new artists whose careers are beginning to build. Below are forty hand-picked artists of varying genres and current levels of success. Some are completely independent, while others have already topped charts. Regardless, all of them show potential to be even bigger names, particularly in America, in the coming year. Listen to the artists through this SoundCloud playlist, and check back later in the year to see how these predictions turned out. Continue reading “Class Of 2015: 40 promising artists to watch this year”